BOC

Definition

In Saxon law, a book, writing, deed, or charter. The term appears in early English legal sources as a root element in compound expressions relating to land conveyance and documentary title. It does not appear as a standalone operative legal term in modern law but survives in historical legal vocabulary through its compounds: 1. Bocland (also boc-land or bookland): Land held by written charter or deed, as distinguished from land held by custom or verbal grant. Bocland was a form of Anglo-Saxon tenure in which the grant was evidenced by a written instrument — the boc — giving the holder broader rights of alienation than customary tenure allowed. 2. Land boc: A writing for conveying land; a land-book or deed. Functionally analogous to what later common law would call a deed or charter of feoffment.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering BOC in historical legal sources should treat it as a paleographic and terminological artifact of pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon law, not as a term with operative modern significance. It surfaces primarily in: — Discussions of early English land tenure, where distinguishing bocland from folkland and laenland is essential to understanding the pre-feudal property system. — Glossaries appended to older editions of legal history texts, where "boc" may appear without context that clarifies whether the reference is to the term alone or to one of its compounds. — Transcriptions of Anglo-Saxon charters and writs, where the Latin equivalents (carta, charta, breve) often appear alongside or in place of the vernacular term. The primary trap for researchers is anachronistic translation: boc does not map cleanly onto "deed" in the modern sense. A modern deed conveys title through a formalized legal act; the boc was more broadly documentary — it could record a grant, a privilege, an ecclesiastical endowment, or a royal charter. Treating it as a simple synonym for deed obscures important distinctions in early tenure law. Researchers working backward from modern property concepts into Anglo-Saxon sources should consult secondary legal history literature on bocland tenure before relying on brief dictionary glosses. The Black's definitions, while accurate as far as they go, compress a complex historical institution into a single line.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (both the 1st and 2nd editions) provides consistent, if minimal, coverage: "In Saxon law. A book or writing; a deed or charter." Both editions note the compounds bocland and land boc. The definitions agree on substance and differ only in minor phrasing. Neither edition elaborates on the tenure implications of bocland or distinguishes it from other Saxon landholding forms — a gap that matters for serious historical research. Rapalje & Lawrence and Burrill's Law Dictionary do not appear to have carried independent entries for BOC. The source material attributed to those dictionaries in this compilation is plainly misassigned — Rapalje & Lawrence's apparent entry begins with "BLOW WITH" and proceeds through "BLUE LAWS" and "BOARD," while Burrill's excerpt addresses blockade law. Neither passage concerns BOC. Researchers should treat those sources as offering no independent authority on this term and rely on the Black's entries and primary Anglo-Saxon legal history scholarship. No historical legal dictionary in the standard shelf provides depth on bocland tenure beyond the glossary level. For substantive treatment, researchers should look to works on Anglo-Saxon law and land tenure rather than to the legal dictionaries alone.

Jurisdictional Note

BOC is exclusively a term of pre-Conquest English law. It has no operative meaning in any current common law jurisdiction and is not used in American, Canadian, or modern English legal practice. Its relevance is confined to legal history and historical document analysis.

Related Terms